


One For the Road

by dorcassmeadowes



Series: The Witcher songfics [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Based on a dodie Song, M/M, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Pining, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Songfic, Unrequited Love, i like to think they kiss and make up after this, pre fix-it, proof reading? dont know her, this is not a healthy way to deal with love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23898508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorcassmeadowes/pseuds/dorcassmeadowes
Summary: Jaskier had given his heart to Geralt half a life time ago in a shitty tavern in Posada, of all places. Geralt had made it abundantly clear he didn't want it. So now Jaskier was... somewhere.aka I've been listening to dodie on repeat for a few days and I realised how many of her songs could be sung by Jaskier after the dragon hunt
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: The Witcher songfics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724008
Comments: 7
Kudos: 118





	One For the Road

_Let's find out just how far I'll go,_

_To look like someone you should know,_

Jaskier was a fool. He knew that. He had known that when he was a child and had first picked up a lute instead of the rapier he was meant to be learning to wield. He had known that when he was a teenager and his father's men had dragged him from the tavern he would sneak to to listen to the bards that travelled through. (He had also known it when said sneaking invited his father's wrath and beatings both.) And he had certainly known it when he saw a Witcher across the tavern in the middle of fucking Posada and decided it would be a grand idea to go and bother him.

But he had never felt quite so foolish as he did now. Standing at the top of a mountain, with a dead dragon behind him, and the man he loved sitting in front of him, heartbroken and distraught and _furious_ , he had thought his life was over. It wasn't, of course. Time continued to trudge onwards, as it never failed to do, no matter how the bard wished it would. Time had continued, and Jaskier had stumbled down a mountain, trying to walk, to see, to _breathe_ through the aching in his chest. And then he did what he always did when his stupid, thrice-damned, _foolish_ heart got broken.

He wrote about it.

Normally, admittedly, his heartbreak lent itself better to song. He gave his heart out willingly and often, as is the life of a bard. But never for quite so long. Never had one person held his heart (albeit unknowingly) for so long that Jaskier forgot what it was to not love them. He normally didn't spend over two decades trailing after his love, reshaping himself to what _they_ wanted, to what _they_ considered good, and helpful, and attractive.

But Geralt had never been normal, and neither had Jaskier's love for him. So now he sits in inns and taverns across the Continent (only the ones without the slightest _whisper_ of a nearby monster), singing his heartbreak to the world and pretending that his coin purse isn't getting lighter with every night he sings of his own pain, rather than the adventures of the White Wolf.

_Maybe I'd sound a little better,_

_If my features were more sweet._

"It's like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling."

The words had cut deep, clouded by exhaustion and desperation though Jaskier knew they were. He was a bard; singing was how he survived. But more than that; singing was how he _thrived_. Ever since he had been a child yearning to be free from the stifling formalities of nobility. Ever since he had decided that he would be _more_. More than a Viscount, more than just another name on the tree of a cruel and backstabbing family. (If you could even call them that.)

Ever since he had looked at himself and named himself buttercup; small, innocent, _harmless_.

So Geralt's words had hurt. More than Jaskier ever let on. He had spent hours thinking on them. Sleepless nights spent rolling melodies and lyrics around in his head. The days he had walked without a Witcher next to him were spent trying to form new songs. Better songs: sweeter, more moving, more accurate, more... _more_. But it still hadn't been enough.

So he had thought maybe it was him - maybe Geralt disliked Jaskier's music because he knew what he was like when he was preparing them. After all, why would he believe his love songs when he saw how Jaskier twitched, and muttered, and pulled faces at his own thoughts. So he had endeavoured to make those aspects of himself less obvious. He would compose more on his own than when he walked the Path with Geralt. He tried to tone down his more annoying habits.

(He knew perfectly well he was annoying, thank you very much. Enough lovers had pointed it out to him. But he had always viewed it as a badge of honour; his father would have beaten him for it, and that was exactly why he did it. But for Geralt... Well. He would do anything for his Witcher.)

Jaskier had named himself after a flower and godsdamnit he was going to be as fair as one.

_Your mind's already been made up,_

_You saw my number and my number wasn't good enough._

It hadn't worked.

He hadn't been surprised.

Jaskier had reshaped himself in an attempt to win the affections of a man who had already tied his fate to another. Because no amount of changing could erase the fact that Geralt had decided somewhere in their first decade of travel that Jaskier just was not enough. Not only that, he was so much not enough that Geralt had run straight in to the arms of an unknown sorceress (and later into her fate and then into her... somewhere else), never knowing that in doing so he was running over Jaskier's heart.

He had pretended he didn't care. That his dislike of Yennefer had been borne from her actions when she thought Jaskier was the one who held the wishes. Geralt had never noticed there might be any other reason.

_I'll write a little better_

_If I'm willing to compete_

After Yennefer had become part of Geralt's life (and, consequently, albeit grudgingly, part of Jaskier's), the bard had tried ever harder to impress Geralt with his songs. He knew that, successful though it was in ensuring he was paid, Geralt had not approved of how Jaskier had stretched the truth in _Toss a Coin_. So, while he had never strayed too far from the truth in his ballads, he had started striving to make sure his songs were as factually accurate as they could be. His poetic license had been thoroughly reigned in. It was a struggle, of course it was. But it had been necessary. To try to remind Geralt that _he was here_. That he cared. Cared what Geralt thought and wanted and liked. Cared for him.

Every glance and grudging smile Jaskier had received in response felt like a victory.

_I'll do it if I have to,_

_Hoping for an inbetween._

_Not what I meant when I said that I–_

_I wanted to be seen._

Jaskier may be a fool, he may have carved out his heart and dropped it in the dust at Geralt's feet the first time he met the Witcher. But he wasn't an idiot.

He knew that Yennefer had been winning. He knew that Geralt would never want him in the same way Jaskier wanted (and _oh_ how he wanted). He knew that for every approving hum he got from Geralt, Yennefer had been given a smile. For every tiny glimmer of affection Jaskier was given, the witch was given a raging fire.

He _knew_.

But he had still had something. Geralt had never given him the same affection he gave Yennefer. Had never split things equally. But there had still been something for Jaskier. It may have only been scraps, and only when Yennefer had left again, leaving Geralt raw and hurting but unable to admit it. But in those brief moments, Geralt had looked at Jaskier. Had seen him.

Had seen him until a fucking dragon and a fucking mountain, that is.

_How am I meant to stay on track_

_When each hand I shake will pull me back?_

He hadn't realised how many people him and Geralt got to know along their travels. He walked into taverns to welcoming smiles and cheerful greetings (and barely concealed confusion at the presence of only him). He was greeted by aldermen in towns across the Continent with a smile and a wave or, in more cases than he cared to admit, a glare and a spit.

He had even come across Yennefer a few times, and they had even somehow become friends. There had been a lot of fighting their first few meetings of course, but somewhere along the way a truce had been called (he suspects it was when they were kicked out of an inn for screaming too loud and he offered her an extra blanket when they huddled in the forest), and affection had eventually followed.

She had gradually tried convincing him to try to find Geralt and repair their friendship, but each time she did, he refused. He was trying to move on and get over his heartbreak, damnit, how would giving Geralt another round with his emotions fix anything? They had fought about it again, the last time they met. He had shouted at her, accused her of trying to drag him back to the agonising pain he had been in the first months after the dragon hunt.

Whispers had reached his ears a month later about a battle in Sodden; about a handful of plucky mages against the collected forces of Nilfgaard. He wished he'd hugged her before she'd left.

_Oh, I'll work a little harder,_

_But walk a little less._

After hearing of the battle at Sodden, Jaskier hadn't dared travel too far south. Nilfgaard loomed ever nearer on the horizon, and tension creeped into the air wherever he travelled. He had to sing twice as hard and twice as long to make even close to the amount of coin he had made with Geralt. And that was before counting how his subject matter bit into his funds.

In the months following the dragon hunt, he couldn't bear to sing at all, and had instead retreated to Oxenfurt to give lectures on composition and tutored bright new students in the lute. However, as the seasons changed and the tension in his throat eased slightly, he began singing in taverns again, and eventually set out on the road once more. But he couldn't bring himself to sing what he once had. Couldn't bear the burn in his throat when he so much as thought of the adventures him and Geralt had shared.

So he sang about anything and everything else. Ancient epics and Skellige drinking songs and ballads of far off lands. And, after yet more time, things he himself had written. Nothing from Before, but things he'd written in his anger, and in his grief (and how sad that he now measured his days in Before and After Geralt. He'd laugh if it wasn't so damn pathetic). Songs of heartbreak and longing and that ever present aching in his joints that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with his heart. _Her Sweet Kiss_ had been a surprising success, but nothing else ever quite reached the same level. And the public eventually tired of that, too.

He was frequenting fewer taverns, what with refusing to travel any farther south than Temeria, and people were less willing to part with their coin for heartbreak, especially when Nilfgaard threatened everything. It was tiring, Jaskier could admit that. Tiring to work so hard on songs that weren't successful, only to perform them in taverns that were bored of him from the last time he visited. But he would make do. He always did.

_And in the end, will I feel proud_

_That I grit my teeth, and followed the damn crowd?_

_Will I have grown a little empire,_

_Or made a fucking mess?_

So money was... tight, to say the least. He was spending more nights camped in the forest, even when he had spent the evening singing, and had lost weight and sleep in the recent months. Hence why he was currently on hour six singing in a washed-up tavern in the middle of bumfuck, nowhere in some gods forsaken corner of Kaedwen. Not that he was bitter. Not at all. Just as his fingers weren't cramping on the strings and his voice didn't feel like it was glass shards ripping up his throat and his fingers hadn't been bleeding sluggishly where they plucked the strings for an hour and a half.

It's fine. He's _fine_. He's been surviving perfectly well without Geralt and he will continue to do so, even with an army on the doorstep and even when he can't sing anything he's known for.

_I'll do it if I have to_

_Hoping for an in-between_

_Not what I meant when I said that I–_

Jaskier looked up as the door opened and a cold gust of air wafted into the tavern. Two figures stood framed in the doorway; one tall, and one much smaller. It was only sheer muscle memory that kept his fingers forming the right chords as he caught sight of silver hair and twin swords across broad shoulders.

Blue eyes met gold.

His breath caught in his throat.

" _I wanted to be seen_ ,"

**Author's Note:**

> So for those of you who haven't heard it, this is dodie's incredible 'Not What I Meant'. I was listening to dodie on repeat while reading Geraskier fics the other day (and crying probably more than a little), when I realised quite how much a lot of her songs fit Jaskier - him being a hopeless romantic singer who gets his heart broken. I may make some more of these as a result (I think Monster could work really well given the implications it would have with Geralt being, you know, a monster killer).
> 
> The title is taken from yet another dodie song, One For the Road, which you can find on her youtube.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! This is the first think I've ever actually written and uploaded, so any feedback would be lovely!


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